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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26056669">(what a life, what a life, what a life)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apfelessig/pseuds/Apfelessig'>Apfelessig</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Good Part [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Turn (TV 2014), Turn: Washington's Spies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adulthood, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Banter, Best Friends, Bittersweet, F/M, Girls' Night, Past Relationship(s), Self Care, Slice of Life, Soft feelings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:48:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,310</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26056669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apfelessig/pseuds/Apfelessig</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>To be fair, no one ever said it would get easier. For Caleb, a dockworker just making ends meet, moving in with the affluent Ben has solved some problems and created some new ones. Anna has troubles of her own, and she's none too keen on reaching out for help. A night for some proper self-indulgence might just be what the doctor ordered.</p><p>Per request, the missing scene from <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25924348">stop being cruel</a>, where Caleb gets drunk, calls Anna and stays out all night. Can be read as a stand-alone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anna Strong/Selah Strong, Caleb Brewster/Anna Strong, Caleb Brewster/Benjamin Tallmadge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Good Part [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891612</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>(what a life, what a life, what a life)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucyemers/gifts">Lucyemers</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <i>I've been stood up by my calling<br/>I’ve been at this bus stop all morning<br/>Don't wanna go home I can't face the ceiling<br/>And there’s nothing to make 'cause I'm low on feeling</i>
</p><p>
  <i>And I wanna live so strong<br/>I wanna live so strong</i>
</p><p>
  <i>So can we get to the good part?<br/>Wanna get to the good part<br/>Fast forward to the good part</i>
</p><p>— <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAX4IgplwWc">"The Good Part"</a> by Liz Lawrence</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Tell me this isn't what I think it is," Anna says. "I've just come off a night shift."</p><p>The hall is bright, too bright, and the buzz that had brought Caleb to her apartment is wearing off. She’d been his first choice half an hour ago, when the second beer had just gotten comfortable in his gut. But that had been at Ben’s apartment and he’d taken any excuse to get out of there.</p><p>Here, under fluorescent lights that do neither of them any favours, he sees his mistake.</p><p>"It doesn't have to be," Caleb says, trying not to sound desperate. Her apartment is invitingly dark and he feels like a predator standing in the hall.</p><p>"Call me when you're sober,” she says, closing the door.</p><p>"No no no, Anna, <em>Annie</em>—"</p><p>The door opens a crack.</p><p>"I just need a friend."</p><p>"You live with a friend," Anna points out.</p><p>"It's not the same," Caleb mutters and there’s something in his voice, a hitch in his shoulders, that gives him away.</p><p>Anna sighs, and he tries not to hear the regret in it.</p><p>“Get inside, then.”</p><p>He passes her gratefully and she wrinkles her nose, closing the door behind him.</p><p>“You smell like a privy.”</p><p>“I’ve had one or two,” Caleb admits.</p><p>She ducks into the fridge and holds out a Miller Lite to him with two fingers. He takes it more or less instinctively and cracks it open, nodding at the remnants of the six pack in the fridge door.</p><p>“You bought more?”</p><p>“These are from last time,” Anna says, meaningfully. Caleb merely snorts and settles onto the couch, taking a sip.</p><p>“How was work?”</p><p>Anna sinks onto a kitchen chair with a grunt. “Same as always. Piss on the floor, darts in the walls. Their aim never gets better, but they know how to keep buying.”</p><p>“That’s ‘cause they’re buying from a pretty face.”</p><p>A heaving sigh. “Aye, it’s all fun and games until I have to play mother hen to those that don't want it.”</p><p>“Sounds like my work,” Caleb says. “When I can get it.”</p><p>“Your work becomes my work,” Anna says, dryly, and she’s not wrong. The pub where Anna bartends is a known watering hole for dockworkers and passing mariners. She’s only started there recently, but the clientele has taken note of her presence as well as her ability to wrench an arm almost clean out of its socket come closing time. Caleb would pity them but it’s too entertaining. </p><p>Anna glances at the untouched beer in his hands.</p><p>"Do you want pickles?"</p><p>He gives her a look of utter devotion as she drops the jar in his lap.</p><p>"I love you, Anna Strong."</p><p>"You love everyone." She holds out a fork.</p><p>"No, you're special. You're my favourite prickly sea urchin."</p><p>She lets him get a pickle into his mouth before she comes back with, "Does that make Ben your favourite sea cucumber?"</p><p>He slowly lowers the fork. "Mrs. Strong, as I live and breathe."</p><p>“What, you’ve never thought about it? And don't call me that," she adds, more quietly. Caleb reads her quickly and lets it pass.</p><p>"Ain't like that," he says, moving on. "Besides, can you picture it? Be honest."</p><p>"You're too good for him," Anna says. "No, you are. He's an insufferable git."</p><p>"He's not—"</p><p>"He is."</p><p><em>He can be</em>, Caleb thinks. "Ain't his fault he makes good money."</p><p>Anna leans forward. "And it's not your fault you don't."</p><p>Caleb lets her have that one. Anna has known the comfort and security of running a successful business with Selah, and Caleb gets the sense she feels its loss more keenly than she’s willing to admit. The fallout from their business and marital separation has made the subject of disparate incomes a sore one for her.</p><p>Caleb's never been flush, not since he was the first to pick up shifts while still in high school, back when that kind of pocket-change still made a difference. Abe's better off than he was, with Mary's firm hand on the financial reigns of their co-op. But Ben belongs to a different stratosphere, and pretending it doesn’t matter is a naïveté they’ve long since abandoned. For all his successes, he makes the effort to remember his roots when they’re together, and that’s enough for Caleb.</p><p>Either way, he’s not going to start a discussion over it now, and he makes a show of smelling himself.</p><p>"Jaysus, you're right. I stink. Couldn't use your shower, could I?"</p><p>Anna rolls her eyes and beckons down the hall.</p><p>"Towels in the cupboard. You can use Selah's stuff."</p><p>Caleb stands and walks over to her, handing off the heavy jar.</p><p>"Thanks, love," he says, giving her a peck on the cheek. She bats his shoulder, turning away with a smile. As he ambles down the hall, she crunches on a pickle thoughtfully.</p><p> </p><p>No room is as revealing as a bathroom and Caleb tries not to take in what the small unit has to share: Selah's razor, dried out, on the counter, his shampoo untouched in the shower. Make up brushes strewn about and a crust of old toothpaste in the sink—it doesn't paint a happy picture. He showers quickly, choosing Anna's ylang ylang shampoo over what's sure to be a painful memory.</p><p>As he hunts for a towel, he stumbles across some flat foil packages.</p><p>"Oi, Anna!"</p><p>The door opens. "What—Christ, Caleb."</p><p>She tosses him a bathrobe from the back of the door, which he catches and distractedly covers himself with.</p><p>"What're these?" he says, waving the packets.</p><p>"Face masks. Mary gave them to me after—" She scratches her ear, tucking away a wisp of hair. "We never got around to it."</p><p>"They expire next week," Caleb says, reading the back.</p><p>Anna waits and then interprets his look. She goes to decline, reaching for one of the mainstay excuses she's acquired in recent months, but Caleb gives an eyebrow waggle and Anna has to laugh, despite herself.</p><p>She points a stern finger. "Only if you wear the robe."</p><p>He makes a show of putting it on and Anna squeals and closes the door.</p><p> </p><p>Caleb takes 'peach'. He sits still as Anna spreads the goop carefully on the strip of his face between his hairline and his beard. His hair is held back with a pink fleece headband, as is Anna's, 'honeydew melon' already drying on her skin.</p><p>Caleb had found some beard oil in the cupboard, still sealed in its packaging. An old gift that the perennially clean-shaven Selah likely had little use for. Anna had shrugged and the woody musk now mingles among the other chemical scents in the cheap makeshift spa the condo has become.</p><p>"You should see him in a suit," Caleb says, apropos of nothing.</p><p>"He can wear a suit," Anna grants, scooping more goo.</p><p>"And it's not like he doesn't look good outside of a suit."</p><p>Anna peers at him. "How would you know?"</p><p>"In sweatpants. I'm just saying, it's not that I've got a thing for suits."</p><p>"Hmm, good," Anna teases, "Or they'll kick you out of the dockworker's union."</p><p>Caleb swats her and she dabs goo on his nose.</p><p>"Maybe it is the suits," Caleb says, after a moment's reflection. "What a cliché."</p><p>Anna seeks out his gaze, those brown eyes that are akin to hers. It was something they’d bonded over, years ago: browns have to stick together, in this sea of there-and-gone-again blues. Another naïveté abandoned in a world full of exceptions to the rule. Still, the hope that forms a childhood pact is long-lasting and she reaches for that connection now.</p><p>"You're not a cliché."</p><p>"Ah, I didn't mean—" but Anna grips his chin and gives it a squeeze.</p><p>"You're the best man I know. And my best friend."</p><p>Caleb sits with the compliment a few seconds before he has to shake it off.</p><p>"You're just sayin' that 'cause I rocked your world once or twice."</p><p>"Once," Anna smirks. "The other time was okay."</p><p>It’s the type of joke that is their stock and trade, but Caleb can’t conjure up a smile. Their college days were a long time ago, but he never squared with how things ended.</p><p>“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” he asks. “Not the—after, I mean.”</p><p>“We knew what we were doing,” Anna says.</p><p>“Yeah, I just—Seems like we made it too simple, sometimes.”</p><p>Anna smears the last of the mask in place and smoothes the edges with her thumb.</p><p>“Doesn’t always have to be complicated.”</p><p>Caleb wants to believe that, has built a life’s philosophy around that, but he also knows the lengths to which Anna goes to hide disappointed hopes.</p><p>“Hey.” She disrupts his train of thought. “You never made me feel like I wasn’t special to you. Even after.”</p><p>Anna smiles at him until he believes it and strokes a stray hair under his headband.</p><p>"Drink?" she asks.</p><p>"Nothin' special."</p><p>Anna was forged behind a bar counter and knows when Caleb’s "nothing special" means "nothing alcoholic". She makes a martini for herself on automatic, unafraid to indulge in the obvious when she doesn't have to shoot whisky to maintain an image at work. For Caleb, she pulls out three hot sauces and tomato juice and squeezes a lime around the edge of a glass.</p><p>Soon, they're lounging side by side, feet on the coffee table, cucumber slices on their eyes, Liz Lawrence on the record player.</p><p>"I needed this," Anna says. </p><p>Her voice is rough around the edges and it doesn't take a genius to guess what she means. Caleb lifts the cucumber slice to look at her.</p><p>"Have you talked to him?"</p><p>"He won't take my calls," she says. "Can't, really. He's working days, I'm not."</p><p>"Then he misses you," Caleb says, firmly. Selah never could confront an unwieldy emotion head-on. He and Anna were spectacularly well-matched in that regard. She never let him hide too long, and he never crowded her when it mattered.</p><p>"I hope so," Anna says, and the admission squeezes Caleb's heart. "How's that drink?"</p><p>The virgin drink has all the spice and spit you could expect from something that would deliver you under the table otherwise, and Caleb thanks every lucky star he knows that he can claim Anna's friendship.</p><p>"It's aces."</p><p>"When're you going to ask out Ben?"</p><p>The non sequitur pulls him upright. He plunks the drink on the table and stares at her. "Aren't you the one that talks me out of my bad decisions? We live together."</p><p>"Even easier, then. Just knock on his door."</p><p>He scoffs. "Right. That gets me one night, and then next morning it'll be 'Caleb, I've thought long and hard about it and I think it'd be best for both of us if you found another place to live—'"</p><p>"He'd never kick you out."</p><p>"No, that's right. He'd give me the silent treatment for a week until I offered to leave, only for him to go on about 'Oh, that's not necessary' and 'I hate to see you forced out'. And then he'd offer to pay three month's rent on the next place I find."</p><p>Anna's silent. It's exactly what Ben would do. She sips her martini.</p><p>"Could be worth it, for one night," she says, finally, and Caleb groans.</p><p>"Anna—"</p><p>"You think he's any good?"</p><p><em>I know he is</em>, Caleb thinks, and then wonders at that. He doesn't know personally. But he’s seen the way Ben anticipates people's movements, opens doors, pulls back chairs, hands them their keys before they ask. He knows. It'd be unforgettable.</p><p>"He's got that lean look to him,” Anna muses. "Like he's always hungry."</p><p>"Like Abe," Caleb shoots back. "Was he any good?"</p><p>Anna snorts her drink and gives him an accusing look over the skewered olive. "Low blow."</p><p>"'Cause I remember a distinctly underwhelmed conversation the next day."</p><p>"It was prom!" she huffs, and it’s clear she wishes she didn’t remember it as well as she does.</p><p>"And ye danced the two step—" Caleb sings, getting to his feet and extending a hand. He swings her up and over the coffee table into a twirl. She shrieks against his shoulder and they settle into an easygoing shuffle, his arm high around her waist.</p><p>"We look like swamp monsters."</p><p>"You are a swamp monster."</p><p>The music slithers into a downtempo. They sway, cheeks pressed together, face paste mingling.</p><p>"Is this stuff supposed to itch?" Caleb asks, suddenly. They share a glance and rush to the bathroom to wash themselves clean.</p><p> </p><p>The night winds to a close and weariness sets in. Caleb is halfway to the couch before Anna stops him with a hand on his arm.</p><p>"Don't be silly."</p><p>She offers him a men's t-shirt to sleep in. It's tight around his waist, but they're both pragmatic creatures at heart. Pragmatic with their generosity, too, for what good it brings them.</p><p>They lie in the queen-sized bed, facing each other. The pre-dawn light is soft and surreal and smooths all edges.</p><p>"I've got pickle breath," Caleb says.</p><p>"Me too." She brushes his beard with her fingertips. "Silky."</p><p>"Hmm." He rolls some hairs between his fingers. "It's nice oil."</p><p>"Keep it."</p><p>In the darkness is comfort and between them is only kindness. Anna leans forward and presses a soft kiss to Caleb's lips. He smiles as she puts her head back on her hands.</p><p>"Look at us," he marvels.</p><p>"Quite the pair."</p><p>He chuckles. Then, he lifts the sheet and beckons her closer. "Come on, then, Annie."</p><p>She cuddles against him gratefully, slotting her back against his chest. He wraps an arm around her and pulls her close, pressing a chaste kiss to her hair. She covers his hairy arm with hers and pulls the sheets in tight. They drift off slowly as the birds wake, safe, secure and warm.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Liz Lawrence on her song, "The Good Part":<br/>“It’s a stomped foot of impatience to hurry life along when it feels like all the days are muted and humdrum. As if there will be a moment where the life you’re supposed to be living will just come along, and then everything that’s dragging you down will disappear. I can’t work out if I’m sending up that idea or if I’m desperate for it. Maybe it’s a bit of both.”</p></blockquote></div></div>
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